Sunday, 2 March 2014

Lizzie Ward

Like most towns and city's around the UK, in Sheffield we are telling local tales from World War 1 with it being the 100th Anniversary this year. Weston Park Museum has dedicated a room to exhibiting artifacts and stories about how the war affected the city and local people. One of my favourite stories (and one I didn't know) is the one about Lizzie Ward. As we all know, most horses were rounded up and sent to France for the war effort, leaving a huge shortage of working horses back here in the UK. Likewise, a local travelling circus found their business curtailed because of the war with most of it's young men sent away and restrictions on travelling around the country, and so Thomas Ward approached Sedgwicks Menagerie and managed to secure the services of a magnificent but docile Elephant to help pull his waggon's for him. And so Lizzie Ward became a regular sight on the streets on Sheffield.

What a lovely story, and one I didn't know either.People often forget the plight of animals during WW1. The loss of horses was enormous and what a terrifying ordeal war must have been for them too, snatched from rural England and sent abroad.I also wonder what happened to the remaining circus animals, if they no longer had a "job".